I play a very soothing, dumb game all the time now, called Block Blast!, it’s very similar to Tetris except instead of having blocks fall continuously from above (which causes me anxiety, tbh), it gives you three blocks at a time. The object, like Tetris, is to complete as many rows as possible without getting crowded out. I started playing this game as part of a concerted effort to wean myself off the New York Times games (R.I.P., Spelling Bee and Connections) after they pissed me off with rotten coverage of so many topics. (To be clear: I think that there are still good journalists working at the NYT, as there are at the Washington Post, but the outlets as a whole have been deeply corrupted by corporate ownership and chasing after likes.)
Anyhoo, like Tetris, the game gets harder the higher your score gets. Around 50,000, your given blocks are pretty much guaranteed to not easily fit on the board, and your job is to figure out the exact sequence and placement which will enable you to free up enough space for all three blocks to land. Spatial reasoning’s never been my strong suit (understatement), but I learned one very valuable thing about myself while playing this game, which is: if I play it continuously for an extended period of time, I make mistakes more frequently. However, if I am not immediately able to figure out where to place the blocks and I feel frustrated, stepping away from the game and then coming back to it later almost inevitably yields the answer. In other words, whenever I get too deep into the game and I manage to step away, when I come back, I almost always have a refreshed perspective that enabled me to perceive the solution.
Yes, this is a piece about politics! But it is also a piece about communications, and our 24/7 content-saturated world. Because I want to describe what I think is happening with the current state of our online discourse and news consumption today.
When Congress reached a compromise on the government shutdown (I can’t link to a definitive source because the articles have such wildly different takes), with a handful of Senate Democrats agreeing to a proposal that restored some of the benefits lost under the shutdown but most assuredly did not guarantee a restoration of much-needed health insurance subsidies, the white-hot anger and name-calling directed at the Democrats was…something. Quite a few of my friends and connections on social media were calling the Democratic Senators every coward-adjacent name in the book.
Having written quite a bit in this space about the challenges of managing my own anger during these terrible Trump-dominated years, I get it. I get the depth and the breadth of the rage we’re feeling at how so many people – millions, literally – voted for the worst person in the world. I think historians will never be finished studying the peculiar mix of racism, misogyny, ignorance, greed, classism, compartmentalization, denial, and outright malice that led to Trump becoming the president not once, but twice. Also, I’m a big proponent of having people feel their feelings, because I don’t think it’s healthy for anyone to just bottle that shit up.
However: while I have much to criticize about the current Democratic leadership in Congress, I am starting to wonder if expressing our anger about any one bad or misguided thing they do has any benefit, for anyone. What I mean is: if you find yourself getting caught up in any one defeat – or one victory, for that matter – it feels like you’re in the same position I am when I’m trying to get a higher score in my stupid block game. You are mired, in other words, in a bog of frustration. The solution or even any path forward will not become apparent to you until you are able to step away, gain some distance, and come back with a refreshed perspective. And if you continue to spew your anger online, for all of your friends and acquaintances to see, you may achieve some temporary and cathartic relief and some like-minded affirmations coming back at you, but you have also dumped your little contribution of mess onto a whole flaming pile of mess, so to speak.
Finally, if you get locked into an anger bog, your declarations of how you feel to all who will listen and heed may be having the effect of obscuring the other positive changes that are actually happening – like, the many legal decisions that are curbing Trump’s corruption and criminal activities, the near-unanimous vote of Congress on the Epstein files, the recent election results, and the continuing and powerful resistance of millions of Americans to this horrible regime. For each and every one of these victories, there were multitudes of good people who worked their butts off – thousands of volunteers, underpaid and overworked campaign staff, and candidates who are stepping up to make a difference at every possible level of government – school boards, law enforcement, mayoralties, city councils, state legislatures, and governorships.
One of my main points in this piece may be super-simple, in that we tend to be by nature glass half-empty or glass half-full people, and I think of myself as the latter and I gravitate towards the latter, too. Again, I understand why people may subscribe to nihilism – there was a whole crop of people online, once the House AND the Senate voted to release the Epstein files, who were saying that Trump supporters could not possibly be convinced to waver in their support of him and that this signal event would make no difference. Their nihilism has a point; millions of people watched Trump incite armed insurrection on Capitol Hill and lo and behold, he was elected President four years later! My father, who was never a big sports fan, always told me that he would place one sports bet a year on the Super Bowl outcome and he would bet against the team he favored, so he would have a potential consolation prize if they lost. But I think that if you ARE a big sports fan, you can’t possibly do what my father did. You can’t possibly bet against anything you love.
Hence, I will never bet against the millions of Americans who are still fighting back against Trump and for our country, every single day. This does not mean I am not frequently frustrated with or angry at Democratic leaders for being ineffective – see my most recent post. But I am for saving this country from Trump and his ilk, and for making things better for myself and especially for groups who keep on getting screwed in this country, historically and today.
So as a result, I have learned to be judicious and careful about what information I take in, and also, what information I put out. I don’t want either myself or people in my networks (who I have learned pay more attention to what I post online than I originally imagined) to be caught in maelstroms of despair and anger. But I do also want to make another point for my fellow communicators out there, which is: we talk all the time about “engaging” our audiences, but as I see it, many of our current audience members may very well be flattened and depressed by the toxicity and nonsense in the online discourse that happens every single day. And when I say online discourse, I am not just talking about the stupid stuff that randos like myself post all the time; no, I am including ALL of the pundits and legacy media outlets that are putting out enraging clickbait nonsense all the time. Just one example: in my days as a communications professional, the New York Times was the absolute pinnacle of a get when it came to media coverage – we’d all be patting ourselves on the back if we got our leaders/spokespeople quoted in the Times or an op-ed published! But just recently, the Times published an asshat of an article, an interview with so-called conservative feminists by Ross Douthat, with the infuriating title of “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” (I’m not going to link to the article, because ewww.) The firestorm of clapbacks that ensued was amazing to see and I confess, I enjoyed every single one I saw.
But do I think even seeing that headline took a toll? Absolutely, I do. It was a potent reminder that there are tons of people who simply do not favor gender equality, or individual rights for that matter, period. It all adds up, is what I’m saying. The tomfoolery of the Times and the Post, the Sauron’s Army of goblins and orcs that is the current GOP and the Trump Administration, and the individual trolls and bots that are busily whipping everyone up in a frenzy online – it all adds up. So when any one of us express our very real, very justified, anger online, are we doing any good or are we just piling on?
That is my point about communications during this time of Trump: were I in the midst of a massive public education campaign on a worthy issue and trying to get eyeballs and engagement on said issue, I’d be a little sensitive about the emotional capacity of my target audience members, because so many of us are getting yanked around so brutally and repeatedly by this news and content cycle. So I think I’d always try for messages that galvanize and inspire people to care. I think I’d try to show how positive change is possible and very achievable. I think I’d acknowledge how weary and sick people are of the status quo, but I’d also work really hard to get them to see that perhaps there are some good things in the world, after all.
[This is not just a message for my fellow communicators working on issues ranging from climate change to education – this is also a message for the Democratics to please stop spamming my texts and emails with all of your all-caps anger. We’re so TIRED, but we’re also ready to be inspired. Pretty please.]
Minna Jung Consulting 